Kids' booze culture

They are the opposite of glamorous - a string of convenience stores dotted around Southampton's residential estates - but they seem to hold an almost magnetic appeal for the city's youth.

Trouble breaks out at these shops with such depressing regularity that it makes sense for officers to have their addresses available at the touch of a button.

With a few quick taps on the dashboard device, we're ready to depart into the night.

Pulling away from the civic centre police station, the officer leading tonight's operation, Satbir Giany, talks decisively into his radio.

We are one of four vans out on patrol tonight as part of a nationwide offensive to crack down on under-age drinking during half term.

In 21st century Britain, it is widely perceived that as soon as school's out, teenagers will descend on street corners to drink themselves stupid.

Earpiece in and helmet in hand, District Officer Giany has worked as a special constable in Southampton for the past 18 years.

He cranes his head to speak to me as we sit sandwiched in the front of the van alongside his colleague who is behind the wheel. This is the fifth night of the operation, he says, and it has already seen "excellent results".

On the previous Friday night, one of the biggest seizures from under-age drinkers that he has ever known was made - three large sacks crammed full of cans and three bottles of vodka were found stashed in woodland in Lordshill.

As we pull up at a set of traffic lights, I'm already starting to realise that DO Giany - at the age of 36 - is something of an expert when it comes to teenage drinking culture.

Friday nights are definitely the worst, he tells me. Saturdays are bad too but the teenagers have normally spent most of their money by then.

Favourite drinks include Fosters, the fizzy wine Lambrini, cider and store-brand vodka.

Cans are often favoured because they are easy to hide in pockets.

And girls are on a par with boys when it comes to drinking these days.

The situation gets worse as the weather gets better, the officer tells me, as we go over yet another speed bump - a familiar fixture in the city's residential estates.

While most of them get older teenagers to buy their alcohol or attempt to get served themselves by lying about their age, there are always other avenues.

"I have been to instances where children as young as 13 have taken alcohol from their mother's fridge," says DO Giany.

"On one occasion when I took a child home the mother was completely oblivious."

Although I don't appreciate its relevance at the time, this is the first hint of a contributory factor to the problem - and one that will become a theme of the night.

It's the P-word, Parents'.

The biggest group the officer has ever seen numbered 30 teenagers, and the worst damage inflicted by drunken yobs that he has witnessed was when a newly refurbished fish and chip shop had all of its windows smashed from the inside out by a 15-strong gang, once again in Lordshill.

They assaulted the owner too.

But is this anything new?

Certainly every time you pick up a newspaper, headlines scream out at you about "Wasted Youth"

or "Booze Britain" to such an extent that an alien visitor might think that kids boozing is a recent phenomenon.

Of course it's not. There can't be many adults who did not sneak a crafty drink when they were growing up.

But what has changed is the scale of the problem. The fact is the groups hanging around shops have become much larger, according to the DO.

As a result, popping to the shop for a pint of milk can be a nightmare in some neighbourhoods, as teenagers block the entrance or shout a volley of abuse at customers.

Pulling up at one of tonight's stops - a Co-op store in Weston - a gaggle of eight youngsters are huddled together on the litterstrewn pavement.

Mostly dressed in tracksuits and trainers, they are friendly when the special constables approach .

It is here that one boy's matterof- fact comment starts alarm bells ringing - we're back to the P-word again. Asked where he gets his drink, the 14-year-old casually replies "I just get my mum to get it," as he pushes his floppy hair out of his eyes.

Friday night they all confirm is drinking night.

"There's nowhere in Weston where we can go," says a shivering 17-year-old girl - the eldest of the group, fully made-up and sat on a mountain bike.

"Our parents don't want us at home and we haven't got money to go anywhere,"

she adds, as she cycles off into the night.

Asked how many of them converge on the bleak parade, an initial estimate of 100 is quickly reduced to 50, ranging in age from nine to late teens.

None of them are drinking tonight, and I wonder just how different the atmosphere would be if they were.

Speaking to staff inside the shop in Weston Lane, it soon becomes clear that the grim reality is a world away from sweetness and light.

Sarah Streets has worked at the shop for two years, an i m p r e s s i v e length of service when you hear what she has to endure on a daily basis.

"It is very tough," the 36- year-old mum admits wearily.

Nodding towards the door, she says: "They are generally drunk and abusive. They just hang around outside constantly.

"There is not a day that goes by when they are not there. Some of them can turn quite nasty when they're drunk and we're busy enough as it is without having to deal with a bunch of under-age degenerates.

"We get a lot of abuse when asking them for ID and the girls are now worse than the boys. When they are drunk they are robbing all the time and we have had two till snatches in this shop in the past year.

"The biggest group I have encountered was 28. When you're only 5ft 2in it's very intimidating.

People get bottles chucked at them and it's actually getting worse but I always say I won't let them terrorise me out of a job."

To say Sarah is on the front-line of this epidemic is an understatement.

Asked what should be done to tackle the problem, it is clearly something she has given great forethought.

"I think we need the police back on the beat, the alcohol confiscated and more vigilance from the people who sell alcohol," she says without hesitation.

Completely unprompted she confirms the worrying words that the boy outside uttered so nonchalantly just five minutes before: parents are buying the booze.

"On Friday and Saturday nights, they just drop them off with bags of booze and some parents come in and buy it for their kids," says the shopworker shaking her head.

"My parents would let me drink indoors when I turned 16 but I never once thought of drinking it on a street corner. It seems to be the norm these days and they don't know any better."

This appears to be the crux of the problem.

And it seems the worst is inevitably yet to come. When today's youth become mums and dads themselves, what example will they set their children? The next generation looks set for the mother of all hangovers.